


When Innocence is Gone, There is Still Hope (formerly Childhood is Far Away, Happiness is Even Farther)

by eggosandxmen



Category: X-23 (Comic), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: ALSO RACHEL AND SARAH ARE FRIENDOS, AU!!!, Childhood Friends, I LOVE MY DAUGHTER AND MY SON AND JUST, LAURA AND HENRY ARE BEST BUDS, NEITHER OF M BABIES DESERVE THIS, henry didnt have a character arc sO I MADE HIM ONE, henry is basically lauras lil bro, henry is older than in canon, henry takes over, laua tells henry to fight his classmates because shes amazing, laura doesnt leave the facility, logan is a good dad for all of 0.2 seconds, new brotp right here, okay but guys i really love henry sutter do you understand, sodas are good for tiny clone assassins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-09-26 23:48:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9933563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggosandxmen/pseuds/eggosandxmen
Summary: A bunch of drabbles for the wonder that is X-23: Innocence Lost.Chapter One: Henry Sutter and Laura "X-23" Kinney, through the years.Chapter Two: Rachel Sutter and Sarah Kinney have a discussion.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I love Henry Sutter so here's a new AU. Laura never escaped, Sarah left without her, and then the Sutters and Rice died of natural causes. So Henry takes over the Facility. Then, well, this happens.

**10 years old**

“Henry?” A voice yells. His dad, probably off to work.

“Yeah?”

“Would you like to come to work with me today?”

Henry’s always known the place his parents work, what the guards call the Facility. They make weapons. His dad told him about what really happens there, three years ago. He told about a man named Dale and a “thing” called Weapon X, a brutal murder, and a promise kept. Then he told Henry about his uncle Zander and a woman called Dr. Kinney creating a new Weapon X, this time in the form of a kid.

He knew she had killed people. Heck, he had watched her kill people, during a session Henry wasn’t supposed to see. She flew through three men and left them with holes in their heads. Normally that would have scared m away from the girl for the rest of his life, but he also saw right before, when his Uncle Zander and his dad was telling her what to do.

His dad, his uncle, and even his mom were killers. Maybe they weren’t the ones with knives in their hands, but they used the one who did.

But he’s always eager to go, just to see 23.

“Sure! Why?”

“We have to start getting you ready to take over, when me and your Uncle Zander and Dr. Kinney are gone.” He says, chuckling.

Oh.

_Oh._

 

He runs ahead of his dad into the office, waving at Zander and Dr. Kinney as he takes a soda from the mini fridge that he’s not supposed to know about. Popping it open, he wanders around for a bit, pretending to be bored, before looking left and right and then sprinting as fast as he can to 23’s cell, stopping to grab two more sodas.

He slams in and spreads his arms. “Guess who’s back?”

23 smiles slightly from where she’s perched in the cage. “You?”

“Me!” He agrees. “I brought a soda!”

He hands it to her and she chugs it in about 3 seconds.

“Whoa!”

“Sorry.” She says sheepishly, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.

“No, that was cool. Anyway, didya miss me?”

“Always.” She smirks.

They talk for an hour, mostly 23’s advice of dealing with jerks at Henry’s school (“Kill them.” “I can’t do that!” “Sure you can-”) until Henry looks at her.

“Am I going to have to take over this place when I grow up?”

She stops and looks at him. “Please do.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause you’re my best friend! If you take over, you can let me out and we can see each other more than twice a year.”

Henry nods. “That _would_ be nice.”

 

**15 years old**

“Henry!” A voice yells. One of the junior doctors.

He sighs. With his dad and uncle on a business trip (read: a road trip to get drunk) and Dr. Kinney gone, he’s basically running the company.

“Yes?”

“X-23’s arm healed wonky. We need your input.”

_Crap._

He follows the doctor to the operating table. 23 is held down on it, her right arm almost backward.  
“What do we do, sir?”

He gulps, but says what they want to hear. “Cut it off and put it back.” He says, tossing his hand.

He turns his back, hears the roar of a chainsaw, and then screams that replay in his head for hours.

**18 years old**

Henry Sutter is his father’s son.

The day after his uncle died, a week after his dad and mom, the Facility asks him to take over.

He agrees.

When he walks into 23’s cell to tell her, she shrank further away from him and didn’t look him in the eye.

 _“If you take over, you can let me out and we can see each other more than twice a year!”_ he remembers, and he nearly starts crying, then and there. But he doesn’t. He’s Director Henry Sutter now. So he clears his throat.

“I’ll be running this place now.” He states.

She doesn’t even react.

“So I’m director now.”

She nods.

As he walks out, she looks up and speaks to his back.

“Remember when I thought you would not turn out like your dad?” She scoffs.

His knees nearly give out, but he keeps walking.

 

**19 years old**

The novelty of having a teenage assassin seemed to have worn out for the doctors. Now it’s experiment r experiment. 23 is beaten and bloody and screaming, day and night, and Henry can barely take it.

So when he sees an announcement about Xavier’s School taking in mutants, he picks up his phone.

“Hello?”

“This is Xavier's, Jean Grey speaking. What do you need?”

“Please, they’ve- they’ve got m friend. My name is Henry Sutter. I run Weapon X. I need your help.”

 

The X-men arrive an hour later.

The one they call Wolverine- the one who used to be Weapon X- tears through the ranks and the others run into 23’s holding cell. Henry sprints in after, hiding behind a wall.

He hadn’t seen her in a month. 

She’s shackled on the wall, a gag one of the doctors shoved in on her mouth, and currently she’s struggling to get down.

Cyclops presses a button on the wall and she drops, tears out the gag, and stands up. 

“Who are you?” She asks.

“We’re the X-men. Who are you?”

“I am X-23.”

Wolverine stares at her. "X-23? As in Weapon X-23?" 

“That is my formal title, yes.”

“Weapon X? Logan, what the hell-” Cyclops starts, but Wolverine cuts him off.

“You’re a clone, aren’t you?”

She nods. 

“Guys? Leave.” Wolverine says.

“But-”

“Go.”

They all leave, and Henry peers further in. 

“They cloned me? I’m going to murder everyone here-” He says, picking up a doctor and pressing his claws on her neck.

Henry’s face goes white. By “people,” Wolverine probably meant him.

But at this point, isn’t that what he deserved?

“Hey!” He yells. The two of them turn around, 23 popping out her claws when she sees him.

“Please- look, I run this scum hole. Don’t kill her! Please!”

He drops the doctor in surprise. “Giving yourself up? Hey, kid, is this the director?”

23 nods mutely.

He starts towards Henry and is about to grab him when 3 yells, “Wait!”

“Yeah?”

“He- he is not a bad person. He has done bad things, yes. But do not kill him. Please.”

Wolverine drops him and Henry stares at 23.

“What the- 23, I literally asked the doctors to cut off your arm. I run this damn company! Why-”

“Because, Henry Sutter, you are not your father’s son. You called them to come find me, didn’t you? To protect me?”

He nod.

“Well, in exchange for you saving my life, I’ll save yours.” She shrugs. 

He gapes at her until Wolverine starts talking. “Consider yourself lucky. Now, can we please get out of this hellhole?” He says, walking out.

23 nods and follows him, but not before stopping next to Henry. “Thank you.” She whispers in his ear, and then runs after the other man.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah and Rachel are friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Facility moms squad is the best, tbh.

Rachel doesn’t really know why she’s here.

 

She doesn’t have a PhD. She doesn’t know how many chromosome pairs are in the human body. She can’t fight. All she’s good at is being the secretary. So she does. She files reports and takes notes and blends into the background. 

Sarah knows _exactly_ why she’s here.

She’s a scientist. She can recite the human body’s bones and their functions in her sleep. She knows how to handle a gun. So she yells and she screams and she fights her way up the ranks.

The two women are polar opposites.

That does not stop them from becoming friends.

So, here they are, Sarah sitting on the counter of the staff room and chugging black coffee with Rachel staring.

“Why?” is all she can muster.

“It helps me not fall asleep after three days of no sleep.”

“You haven’t slept for three days?” Rachel asks incredulously.

“Can’t.”

“And why is that?”

“Rice wanted a report, and I’ve got to stay on the top so I don’t get kicked out of here. Thus, the report has to be perfect.”

“They won’t kick you out.” Rachel scoffs. “You’re the one that made this whole thing possible.”

“Yeah, but through me doing… everything I did… everyone else learned it too. The only reason I’m still here is because your husband wants to control X-23.”

“What?” 

“He says it’s all about control. And, seeing as I’m the only doctor in this hellhole that has never explicitly tortured 23, she got attached to me. Sarah explains. “If X-23 messes up, Sutter knows he can mess with me to get the kid back for it. That damn-” 

“Basically, my husband sort of sucks?’ Rachel says, cutting her off.

“Yeah. Sorry.” Sarah says, blushing. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I get it.”

They sit in silence until Rachel speaks up. “Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you- do you-” she says, fumbling for words. “You said X-23 likes you.”

“Yes.”

“Do you- do you feel the same?”

Sarah grows quiet. “Rachel, do you know how dangerous me saying anything is?”

“What-”

 

“If I admit that X-23 is more to me then an experiment, I will be fired. I might be killed. Simply because, to your husband and to Rice, anyone that feels sympathy for her is a threat.”

 

“How?”

“You know the X-men, right?”

“Of course.”

“They’re famous for breaking kids out of dangerous situations. Seeing as we have a mutant child locked in a cell being tortured day and night, if the X-men hear about it we’d all probably die. Anyone who thinks the X-men may be right is dangerous, do you get it?”

“Do you? Think the X-men are right?”

Sarah quiets again.

“Yes.” She whispers. “Yes. I think what we’re doing is awful, and we’re all going to burn in hell for it. But if anyone figures out that I do, anyone, I will be shot. Do you hear me?”

Rachel nods.

Sarah finishes he drink and jumps off the counter. “I have to go finish my report.”

She nods again, and Sarah walks out again in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all liked this! Originally it was supposed to be a one-shot, not anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked.
> 
> Kudos and Comments are totally a thing.
> 
> If you ant more of this AU, tell me!
> 
> (I just love my babies okay.)


End file.
